Escobar was killed in December 1993 in a joint Colombia-U.S. operation.

The building will be replaced by a memorial to the victims of drug violence.

"This means that history will not be written in service to the victimizers, but in recognition of the victims," President Ivan Duque said at the event, before he flew to the Venezuelan border to attend a charity concert.

At height of the bitter conflict between Escobar's Medellin cartel and the rival Cali cartel, the complex was attacked with a car bomb.

It was expropriated by Colombia in 1990 and for a time served as extra office space for the attorney general's office.